This column will consist of questions that have been asked
of the staff at Newgy or our replies to questions posed on the table tennis
(ping pong) newsgroup, rec.sport.table-tennis. This month's questions were
asked in an e-mail by Mark Galecki. We encourage
readers to send in your own questions. You may email orfax or write
us.
All questions cannot be answered, but we will pick out one of them to answer in
this column.

Mark,

Again, thanks for all your
comments and helpful suggestions. I'm glad you were able to successfully
navigate all the typos and missing bits and pieces in the online coaching
articles to learn something from them. FYI, many of the articles were written
before the advent of the 40mm ball, so it does not surprise me that some of the
settings suggested in the articles are inaccurate. I'll have to go back and
correct these mistakes the next time I'm proofreading the articles.

Regarding some of the
robot's peculiarities:

1.The
eyes in the net could be a bit smaller—now, hard hit balls get lodged in
the net a lot.

Actually we will soon increase the size of the holes in the Trap Net. The hole size
was not increased after the conversion to the 40mm balls, so this larger ball
does have a tendency to get stuck in the net holes. The larger holes in the new
nets will allow a 40mm ball to more easily pass through the net and get trapped
between the Trap Net and the Back Net.

2.I
found that, with most lessons, if they specify the speed and angle of the head,
the angle is wrong—that is, with that speed, and that angle the balls do
not land in my court.

Answered above. Also
please be aware that every robot will vary somewhat in its settings. For
example, a ball speed of 3 on one robot may not be exactly the same speed on
another machine. Use your common sense and judgment to slightly modify the
settings so the ball lands properly on your side of the table.

3.It
is impossible to adjust frequency to 1 1/2 or below.

This is easily solved. Go
to Radio Shack and get some Tuner Lubricant and Cleaner. Clear out all balls
from the ball pickup area around the Ball Feed (Frequency) Motor. Turn your
robot's ball frequency to 10 and spray the cleaner inside the motor. You will
almost always hear an immediate increase in motor RPM's. This will clear out
any dust or corrosion inside the motor that prevents the motor from turning at
low voltage. Now turn the frequency down to as low as you want (even below
1.5!).

4.The
balls get stuck in the back area of the tray next to the upright plastic ball
guide. One ball will stop there, and then you will start building a whole line
of balls there behind the first one and you have to go and dislodge them to get
more balls. If you change the angle of the upright guide there, from 90 degrees
to the back of the tray, to 45 degrees, say, that will prevent that. In fact,
sometimes there are lots of balls on one side and none up the upright ball
guide—they are all stuck. It would be good to better profile the side of
the center guide and bottom and angles of the tray.

Yes, we are aware of this
problem and are working on a solution. Right before the conversion to 40mm
balls, we designed a part called a Wedge Filler that prevented 95% of the
incidences of this problem with the 38mm ball. But with 40mm balls, this
problem re-emerged and needs to be re-addressed.

5.The
tray is somewhat loose as attached to the table (but there are no hard
attachments so it is not possible to adjust) and falls back off the table just
a bit. This changes the angle of the tray and may account for the property 4
above.

This one is also easily
correctable. With every 2040 robot is a set of extra rubber tips and washers.
These are placed on the support legs and are responsible for leveling the trays
of the robot. See page 13 of our newly revised Owner's Manual for more info on this adjustment.